Alright a few of us are at the stage for doing a front leaf spring conversion because the stock suspension is too damn small.

The idea behind this thread is to be pure tech and ideas for those of us who have done are doing or are going to do a leaf spring front conversion on an XJ.

tell us what you are doing or how you did it.

I'll go first.

I am planning on first lifting the rear with a 3/4 elliptical setup using 63in chevy rears on top of a D60. (what do you think, will it give me enough lift)

once the rear is lifted i will try to even out the front. I am going to try doing it how the toy guys do a SAS. with the front hangers on a tube that is welded to the frame. I will the cross brace this and the ps box. The reason for using the hangers on a bar is that the frame in the front is much higher than where the shackle will mount and i want to level it out as much as possible.

For front springs i am thinking about 44044's but again i am not sure how much lift (if any) this will give me.

as far as the frame goes i will have an exo/inner cage built. It will be a full exocage originating at teh front hanger and front shackle and following the roof line all the way back. There will be two members however that run from the exocage to the inside and mount to the frame (through the floor) at the location of the rear spring hanger and rear shackle. I will also box and cross brace this area.

Now tell me how you are going to do it

I just finished putting 11 inches of lift on the front of my xj, the 35's look to small, could fit 38's. tons of flex, nothing better than coils I think. leafs are the easy way out to get lift.

I ahve seen one in a magazine on the hammers.......didnt perform near as wellas the coils.....but its obvious this is mall thing huh!

I also plan on doing this very soon.

MY PLAN:
REAR SETUP:
ETHER 57" RANGER SPRINGS OR 63" CHEVY (UNDECIDED)

FRONT SETUP:
REAR LIFTED XJ SPRINGS UP FRONT, PROBABLY FRONT SHACKLE (STILL UNDECIDED)
The front axle will be a dana 30 from a YJ, my XJ is my daily / moderate wheelr, so the stock axles i have no problem with.

I will add plateing arround the areas of hangers. and add a adtnl cross member.

I need some advice / direction, on what to do:
FRONT OR REVERSE SHACKLE???
I have a CV driveline with a long slip yoke, i just really want to avoid a new front driveline.

Well I thought about converting the front to leafs but it will never perform as well as coils. I've seen a couple leaf setups and they look good and perform well but I want a little more so here's my idea I'm going to try:

Run 1.5" or 2" by 4", .125 or .25 wall tubing down the existing "frame" rails all the way. Then run braces across the front and rear to "box" it in and incorpurate and new t-case x-member and a 3/4body skid plate. Run a D60 front 5.13's Detroit adadad...either 5.5 Bronco II coils or maybe the 8" Skyjackers that I have now or even custom. 4 link front. Ram assist. high Stier. The rear a D70. Coils and either a 4link or a double inverted A-arm setup. I'll try and level out the front and rear coil mounting areas to run the same coils f&r. A exo-cage will come later. I'm even considering moving the rear axel back a few inches because I have 4 dr. and I might just flat cut the rear fenders like they do on CJ's. The front might even get move forward a little for better driveshaft angels and better aproche angels.

I have 36 TSL front 35 Boggers rear right now and want 40's :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

how about this:

first and foremost is the unibody reinforcement. I plan down the road (WAY down teh road) to use an L channel and reinforce all along the entire unibody with the metal on teh bottom and outside (leaving the inside of the frame rail as is)

From the L channel, to help to reinforce it I would base a full exo-cage coming off, up, and over, all connected from the hood hoops to teh roof hoops. this ties everything together and will support the L channel from tearing the frame rails under extreme flex.

Once you have teh L channel boxing the frame in than it is just a matter of positioning the mounts to locate the front axle.

One of the beauties of the XJ front coil setup is that it allowed for a minimal front overhang. in order to avoid having to make a custom mount outboard (foreward) from the weaker unibody I would look at all other leaf front vehicles with a short front overhang. the two at the top of my list are Waggy fronts and 81-85 toyota fronts.

I personally would go with the toyota fronts.

This is my little design to do a front leaf swap but it is a LONG time down the road....just an idea...just an idea...:beer: :usa: :vader2:

Originally posted by NothernAZxj
I ahve seen one in a magazine on the hammers.......didnt perform near as wellas the coils.....but its obvious this is mall thing huh!

actual this is the complete opposite of a mall rig. We are going for performance and fuctionality over looks. He really like mud running and i am starting to get him to like rocks more.

let me give you an idea of how he works. One day he got bored and was tired of his small ass cherokee so he cut the fenders out (all the way out, you can see the road from inside) and fits 35's on a 3in lift.

If it wasn't for me he would aready have some hacked together suspension. He won't wait for a 4-link to be designed or built. Other wise i would gladly do it for him (and it would be easier). And we may revert back to a front and rear 4-link in the future but this is for now.

His shit is going to be perfect (functionality wise) but beat to death looks wise.

TRD; YOU GOT SOMETHING HANGING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH; O YEA THATS RIGHT ITS SH*T. ENOUGH SAID. XJ; you don't even own a jeep or like them so stick to your toys and stay off the jeep board. I just decided to change my name thanx to you!!!1

I don't know anything about Jeeps, but Nick from our club has a leaf sprung XJ.

Nicks XJ (http://www.carnagecrew.com/nick.html)

here's my heep

HEHEHE

Sorry ;) bad pic :flipoff2:

Better luck next time

BLING BLING